GALESBURG — After the seven voting members of the District 205 Board of Education accepted the new contract at 2 p.m. Thursday, board and GEA bargaining team members shook hands and hugged one another.

“Just glad it’s over” was uttered by more than one member as they filed out of Superintendent Bart Arthur’s office, smiles on their faces.

“We’re very pleased that the (union) membership ratified the contract and that the board did the same,” Arthur said. “It’s good to get it all over with so we can start educating kids.”

After teachers met at 8 a.m. Thursday and voted to ratify the contract by a razor thin margin nearly five hours later, dozens of teachers left Galesburg High School looking visibly upset, some drying tears from their eyes.

The contract was approved with just 52.3 percent of teachers in support, according to a GEA news release.

“This town will never be the same,” one teacher said.

“A ridiculous decision was made,” another disgruntled teacher said.

Once teachers left the building, the doors were locked until GEA representatives addressed the media at 6 p.m.

Arthur called a news conference a few hours after teachers approved the contract.

He said both sides understand the implications this strike has had on the community, especially keeping the students from attending school.

“The board gave some things and the union gave some things and that’s what collective bargaining is all about,” Arthur said.

Arthur couldn’t speak to exactly what had gotten teachers so upset, almost enough to shoot down the proposed contract.

As Brad Bennewitz, GEA spokesman, explained during a Thursday evening news conference, many teachers said they could live with the contract, but were upset by the “damaging aspects of the back to work agreement.”

The issues circle around teachers’ docked pay.

Because the district is only making up four days of school, teachers are being docked six days of pay, Bennewitz said, though they have the option to miss only four days of pay should they decide to use two sick days.

“Our bigger concern really lies with people who are in retirement, what we call ‘the pipeline,’?” Bennewitz said.

Those who have already issued their irrevocable letter of retirement will be receiving a 6 percent compounding salary increase during their last years of teaching, Bennewitz said, which would boost their pensions.

Since they will be docked pay this year, teachers in the pipeline will be receiving less pay from the retirement incentive and less pay from their pensions.

Page 2 of 3 - “That’s a significant amount of money that’s going to hurt people for the rest of their lives,” Bennewitz said.

“Sadly enough, collective bargaining does that,” Arthur said prior to the GEA conference. “You’re not going to get both sides super happy about everything. The board gave up some things, too.”

However, Arthur said students will attend school today with a 55 minute early dismissal, except for the pre-kindergarten students. They will start Tuesday after the holiday.

Also, to comply with Illinois law, the district will make up only four of the missed days from the strike.

“That lost a couple days but we really were starting earlier than other schools so I’m not concerned about the calendar,” Arthur said.

He said as part of making up those days, the fall semester won’t end before winter break, as it normally does. Instead it will continue in January. Arthur said they are still trying to figure out what to do with high school students set to graduate at mid-term.

Teachers will get paid for those four make-up days, but they won’t receive back-pay for the other missed days.

Students could be missing more than four days of class, however. Instead of having a full year of 174 school days, the 2014-15 school year will have only 168, Bennewitz said.

Because the number of in-class days falls below the 174, the district will be losing state aid, Bennewitz said. According to the GEA news release, District 205 still stands to profit between $400,000 and $500,000 because more than 600 teachers and paraprofessionals are receiving docked pay.

“Those (school) days could easily be made up in a number of ways,” Bennewitz said, “and the school board and the administration rejected all of our attempts to do that.”

One possibility was to take after Knoxville’s upcoming school calendar, which will see a two-week delay in the start date of school due to construction on the town’s new high school. The Knoxville School District will start late, but by trimming winter and spring breaks and holding class on optional holidays, the last day of the school year will not change and the total number of days students attend will not differ from a typical school year.

“All of those attempts to get a full school year in for our kids were all rejected by the school board and the administration,” Bennewitz said.

Arthur and the board received a lot of public criticism on social media for calling parents to notify them of the school day, hours before the GEA approved the contract.

“When you’re trying to notify 4,500 kids and parents that school’s going to begin, I couldn’t wait until later in the day,” Arthur said. “We knew that the vote could possibly go the other way. I was hopeful that it wouldn’t, but in no way did I just assume by sending it out that teachers were going to ratify the contract.”

Page 3 of 3 - Arthur said the high school football game is set to play as scheduled as well since the students will be in Friday.

“It appears that they’ve been practicing so by the IHSA eligibility they’ll be able to play tomorrow night and the kids will be in school tomorrow,” Arthur said.

He said the pressure of the upcoming game was noted in negotiations, but he said both parties stayed focused through it.